LIFE ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 11 
isms,” “The Nature and Origin of Living Mat¬ 
ter,” “The Origin of Life,” and “The Evolution 
of Life.” Experimental defects were proved to 
exist, however, in the majority of his experi¬ 
ments, and it is true that his work has not so 
far succeeded in convincing the scientific world. 
One fundamental difficulty which always pre¬ 
sents itself is this—all life as we know it is 
the product not only of certain chemical and 
physical forces, but also of heredity, and, on 
the theory of spontaneous generation, we must 
assume that the first living organisms some¬ 
how sprang into being without any hereditary 
characteristics at all. This is an enormous 
theoretical difficulty which has never been sur¬ 
mounted. Nevertheless, if experimental proof 
were ever offered, this objection would have 
to give way to the facts. 
Doctor J. Butler Burke, of Cambridge, Eng¬ 
land, some years ago published a book entitled 
“The Origin of Life,” in which he advanced the 
claim that he had been successful in producing 
a form of artificial life in test-tubes by means 
of radium and sterilizied bouillon. He called 
the resultant products RADIOBES. It was soon 
shown, however, that these radiobes did not 
multiply, and in fact showed almost none of 
the true signs of life. It was therefore con¬ 
cluded that he had not succeeded in creating 
life, but only life like bodies, which had a few 
of the outward manifestations of life. 
Another experimentalist who stoutly main¬ 
tained the theoretical possibility of spontaneous 
generation was Prof. Felix Le Dantec, of the 
University of Paris. In his book “The Nature 
